PowerGorilla MiniGorilla review

Squeeze some extra life out of your gadgets

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Our Verdict

A handy charger for gadgets, even if it isn't cheap

For

Useful size

Decent amount of power on offer

Against

A little expensive compared to some options

Ah, the gorilla. Biggest (and therefore bestest) of all primates, it's a powerful, dark beast, adept to living in the harsh lands of the rainforest. The MiniGorilla (Latin: MiniGorilla) is a smaller beast, and adept to living on your desk, in a plane, or in a seedy motel in Michigan. But probably not so at home on the River Congo.

It's a small (think portable hard disk size) battery pack, designed to deliver extra power to all your technological goodies. It includes connectors for a variety of netbooks, phones and MP3 players, but you will have to buy iPod or MacBook adapters separately (HAHAHA!). It also comes with all the adapters you'll ever need to charge it in on a variety of continents.

But is it worth it? We managed to get two and a half hours extra out of an Asus Eee using the device, which is about what you'd expect from its standard battery. But, for half the price of the MiniGorilla, you can pick up a whopping nine-cell battery for your Wind or Eee, and you can charge most of your gadgets via your netbook anyway.

In fact, Mini-USB is set to become the de facto standard for mobile phones in the coming years, so you'll really only need the one cable.

If you don't own a netbook, however, but do have an array of gadgets that need constant charging, the MiniGorilla could come in handy. Especially if you're going on a long excursion to the Congo to meet actual gorillas.

Designed specifically to work with the latest netbooks, the minigorilla is also able to charge e-readers, camcorders, mobile phones and many more electronic products that require a 19v DC input or less.